소비자의 항공마일리지 효익에 대한 지각과 사용행동에 관한 연구

Abstract

As more people have travelled to foreign countries recently, so has the importance of the bonus mileage that airlines offer. However, the previous studies have considered bonus mileage simply as one of the service factors, and little research has been conducted on the individual consumer behavior in using their mileage. When enough mileage are accumulated, they can have equivalent value of certain amount of cash. That is, in a situation where consumers have options of paying cash or using their mileage, it is possible that consumers consider the mileage, which have a hedonic attribute, more valuable than cash. For this reason, they may perceive that using the mileage can save more money. While airline flyers try to find effective ways of mileage use, airliners utilize mileage as a switching barrier. It was noted that with longer flight distance and greater flight upgrade airliners offer lower rate of mileage requirement. It can be hypothesized that reasonal consumers would use the mileage for longer-distance travel. It can be also assumed that this kind of mileage use behavior would be more salient by those with greater knowledge or perceived value of mileage. We need an in-depth investigation into the perceived equivalency, testing these hypotheses. The purposes of the present study are: 1) to examine the relationships between the individual characteristics (efforts to earn mileage, experience and knowledge of mileage use) and the perceived value of mileage and equivalency; 2) to investigate the effect of the characteristics of mileage (benefits and convenience) on the perceived value of mileage and equivalency; 3) to confirm whether the perceived equivalency between the value of mileage and cash amount actually becomes a factor for consumers' perceived value of mileage; 4) to explore how the perceived value of mileage affects affective and calculus commitments to the airliner; 5) to look into whether affective and calculus commitments to the airliner affect consumer loyalty and their future use intention of mileage; and 6) to investigate whether consumer loyalty to the airliner can affect their future use intention of mileage. A survey was conducted using questionnaires for a month. The researcher visited an airport in a metropolitan area and distributed a total of 200 questionnaires to the airport users who had used their bonus mileage. Of the 189 questionnaires that were returned, 182 questionnaires were used in the final analysis, excluding 7 with incomplete answers. The analysis of the study was conducted with the spss 11.1 program. In order to test the validity and reliability a (confirmatory) regression analysis was performed. The findings of the study are as follows. First, the benefits of using mileage and convenience had a significant effect on the perceived value of mileage. Second, convenience, efforts to earn mileage, and the experience and knowledge of mileage use had a significant effect on the perceived equivalency between the value of mileage and cash amount. Third, the perceived value of mileage significantly affected affective and calculus commitments to the airliner. Fourth, the consumers' perceived equivalency affected their perceived value of mileage and use intention. Fifth, affective and calculus commitments affected consumer loyalty to the airliner. And sixth, consumer loyalty to the airliner had a significant effect on use intention. The finding of the study suggest the following theoretical and managerial implications. First, focusing on the concept of perceived efficiency, which has little been investigated in the previous studies, the present study attempted to examine the effects of the characteristics of bonus mileage options and individual characteristics of mileage usage behavior related to flight distance and flight upgrade. The results show that the degree of the consumers' efforts to earn mileage, experience, and knowledge of mileage use had a significant effect on the perceived equivalency. The finding suggests strategic implications for airliners that they need to accomodate individual characteristics. In addition, the present study confirmed that the perceived value of mileage led to consumer loyalty through relationship commitment. In particular, both affective and calculus commitments led to consumer loyalty to the airliner, suggesting the increasing importance of mileage. Finally, consumer loyalty to the airliner had a significant effect on use intention. The results show that perceived benefits of mileage depended on the distance of flight and the consumers' awareness of the benefits means that in their future use of mileage they may use the airline again depending on value equivalency. Therefore, airliners should come up with strategies that can have their flyers perceive the value equivalency and make perceived benefits greater than those offered by their competitors.